Legacy slash commands

Slash commands using Slack's legacy Custom Integrations allows you to add slash commands to your workspace without having to create a custom Workbot (i.e. a Slack app). However, legacy slash commands lack certain capabilities that come with the custom Workbot slash commands. You can view a detailed comparison between the two in the Custom Workbot slash commands vs Legacy slash commands document.

To use this feature, you first need to add the slash command custom integration to your Slack workspace.

This custom integration will work in conjunction with Workbot to execute your recipes.

Adding the Slash Commands custom integrations to your Slack workspace

Click on Add Configuration. Key in the name of your slash command. Slash commands should be named after the function it performs, e.g.

/createissue, /listusers, /showcustomers

Next, click on Add Slash Command Integration. You should now be at the Slash Command settings page. Scroll down to Integration Settings. Under Token, copy the value in the field e.g. UtsZHLeOKI4S7zqkG3YngwI1 - we'll need this when configuring the Workbot connection in Workato. Keep this tab open - we'll come back to it later.

Configuring the Workbot connection

From your Workato account, go to the Workbot connection you want to use slash commands with. Under the Advanced group, paste the Token value you copied earlier into the Slash commands verification tokens field. Click Connect and authorize the connection.

As we're not using a custom Workbot here, leave Custom OAuth profile empty. However, a Workbot connection can use both a legacy slash command (using the Slash commands verification token) as well as a custom Workbot with a Custom OAuth profile.

Done! Workbot is now connected to the custom integration slash command. Next, we need to configure the Workbot recipe to talk to the custom integration slash command.

Getting started

To get started, fill in the post command trigger fields as you normally would. Next, move on to the slash command configuration group.

Slash command configuration group

Enable slash command

Toggle whether to enable slash command for this command trigger. When set to 'Yes', command can be invoked using a slash command.

Command name

This is the name of your slash command. Slash commands should be named after the function it performs, e.g.

/createissue, /listusers, /showcustomers

Slash command actions must start with a slash and contain no spaces. This slash command will also need to be created in your custom bot in Slack, but we'll get to that later.

Request URL

When slash commands are invoked from Slack, Slack will require a URL to send requests to. This request URL is generated by Workato, and will be needed when setting up your legacy slash command in Slack (we'll get to that later).

After Enable slash command is set to Yes, and a valid Command name is keyed in, then a Request URL is generated in the help box at the top of the post command trigger.